Tatiana March - His Mail-Order Bride

A Wild West wedding!

Thomas Greenwood expected his mail-order bride to be plain and pregnant—not a willow-slim beauty! She’s clearly no practical farmer’s wife, but she’s his chance finally to have a loving family...

Runaway heiress Charlotte Fairfax fled the possibility of a forced marriage, yet now, assuming a stolen identity, she’s wed to a stranger the moment she steps off the train! She plans to stay only until it’s safe to leave. Except marriage to kindhearted Thomas is far more complicated—and pleasurable—than she ever imagined!

The Fairfax Brides

Three sisters find rugged husbands

in the wild Wild West

Beautiful heiresses, Charlotte, Miranda and Annabel Fairfax have only ever known a life of luxury in Boston. Now, orphaned and in danger, they are forced to flee, penniless and alone, into the lawless West. There they discover that people will risk all for gold and land—but when the sisters make three very different marriages to three enigmatic men they will find the most precious treasure of all!

Read Charlotte and Thomas’s story in

His Mail-Order Bride

Available now

Look out for

Miranda and James’s story

and

Annabel and Clay’s story

coming soon!

Author Note

I’ve always loved Westerns, and when I started writing historical romance Western settings were the natural choice. The idea behind His Mail-Order Bride is simple: a young woman on the run assumes another woman’s identity—an action that lands her in trouble and leads to difficult moral choices.

Charlotte Fairfax is a complex heroine. Born to wealth but then deprived of every security she is accustomed to, she needs to evolve from a naïve, innocent heiress into a resourceful young woman who is able to support herself in the frontier region.

In contrast with Charlotte, Thomas Greenwood is a straightforward hero. He has had a tough life, filled with rejection and hard work. All he wants is a woman of his own. A wife. A companion. Someone to love. Someone to help with the chores.

When the dainty, whimsical Charlotte turns up instead of the sturdy mail-order bride Thomas has been expecting his life turns into chaos—in more ways than one.

In the opening scene of His Mail-Order Bride you’ll meet Charlotte’s sisters: the feisty, daring Miranda and the clever but highly strung Annabel. They deserved their own stories, which have became a trilogy—The Fairfax Brides. And at the end of Annabel’s story comes a solution to the family feud that has forced the girls to flee to the West.

I hope you enjoy His Mail-Order Bride and will want to go on to read Miranda and Annabel’s stories.

His Mail-Order Bride

Tatiana March

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Before becoming a novelist TATIANA MARCH tried out various occupations, including being an accountant. Now she loves writing Western historical romance. In the course of her research Tatiana has been detained by the US border guards, had a skirmish with the Mexican army and stumbled upon a rattlesnake. This has not diminished her determination to create authentic settings for her stories.

Books by Tatiana March

Mills & Boon Historical Romance

The Fairfax Brides

His Mail-Order Bride

Mills & Boon Historical Undone! eBooks

The Virgin’s Debt

Submit to the Warrior

Surrender to the Knight

The Drifter’s Bride

Visit the Author Profile page at millsandboon.co.uk.

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For my sister,

who likes sea shanties.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Author Note

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Extract

Copyright

Chapter One

Boston, Massachusetts, May 1889

Charlotte Fairfax stood on the balcony at Merlin’s Leap, her hands clasped around the stone balustrade. Down in the restless ocean, waves crashed against the cliffs with an endless roar. Spray flew up in white columns. A chilly mist hung in the air. In the distance, the lighthouse at Merlin’s Point, not yet lit up for the night, silhouetted against the dark bank of clouds.

Morbid thoughts filled Charlotte’s mind. A hundred years ago her ancestor, Merlin Fairfax, had leaped to his death from this very spot. Had he been pushed, as his widow claimed? Had his younger brother murdered him? Rumors persisted even today, suggesting that he had.

Did cruel nature pass down through generations?

Was one branch of the Fairfax family tainted with evil?

How far might Cousin Gareth go to get his hands on her inheritance?

A tap on her shoulder made Charlotte jolt and cry out in alarm. She whirled around, fear throbbing through every muscle. Her shoulders sagged with relief when she saw her sister Miranda.

“You scared me.” Her words came on a nervous sigh. “I didn’t hear you open the door.”

“Come inside,” Miranda said. “We need to talk.”

Charlotte followed her sister into the upstairs parlor that overlooked the ocean. Through the wide bay window, she could see a flock of seagulls dipping and wheeling over the foaming whitecaps, could hear the muffled sounds of their screeching.

Built of gray stone, solid as a fortress, Merlin’s Leap stood on a rocky headland just north of Boston. All three Fairfax sisters had been born in the house, had enjoyed a happy childhood there, and had been looking forward to entering adulthood. And then, everything had changed four years ago, when their parents drowned in a boating accident.

The middle sister, Miranda, was the tallest, and the only one who took after their father. Blonde, blue-eyed, she looked elegant and feminine, but she could outrun, outride and outshoot most of the men on the estate.

At twenty-four, Charlotte was the eldest. Small and slender, with curly dark hair and hazel eyes, she was dreamier than her sisters, and less practical. When circumstances called for it, though, the stubborn streak that usually remained hidden behind her gentle facade came out, turning her into a fighter.

Annabel, the youngest, was only eighteen. She shared the same petite frame and dark coloring as Charlotte, but her hair was straight instead of curly. They were alike in personality, too, quieter, not nearly as bold or feisty as Miranda.

In the parlor, the big stone fireplace had been lit in deference to the cool spring day. Annabel stood by the hearth, a wool shawl wrapped around her threadbare gown. The rigid set of Annabel’s shoulders and her fraught expression filled Charlotte with alarm.

We need to talk, Miranda had said.

Not sisterly gossip.

But the kind of talk that altered lives.

Her pulse accelerating, Charlotte hurried across the room to her youngest sister. She halted beside Annabel in front of the fire and held her hands out to the flames, fortifying herself.